Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 2, 1993 TAG: 9304010173
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: DONNA ALVIS-BANKS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
DECIDING WHAT NOT TO DO IS THE PROBLEM
If you can't find enough to do this weekend, you need to join Insatiables Anonymous.For starters, there's the big bash in Blacksburg.
The annual Huckleberry Trail Festival starts today and continues through Sunday. The three-day event features the Brush Mountain Arts and Crafts Fair in Virginia Tech's Rector Field House and the Blacksburg Junior Woman's Club's Antique Showsale and Quilt Show at the Blacksburg Community Center.
The fete takes to the streets Saturday with the International Street Fair on College Avenue and Draper Road in downtown Blacksburg. Expect lots of ethnic food, music and merriment.
Tours of the Virginia Museum of Natural History, Smithfield Plantation, the Virginia Tech campus and hikes on the Huckleberry Trail are planned, as well.
Special events include a performance by the Blacksburg Community Band tonight at 8 and a performance by the Blacksburg Ballet School Saturday evening at 7. Both are at the Blacksburg High School Auditorium and both are free.
For details on all the related events, check the Arts & Entertainment calendar in today's Current.
\ MEANWHILE, IN RADFORD . . . Radford University is gearing up for its annual "Pow Wow," the traditional Indian gathering sponsored by the Native American Heritage Association.
Registration for the two-day event starts at 4 p.m. today at the Dedmon Center. Traders will be setting out their wares and dancers will be warming up for the Intertribal Dance at 6:30 p.m. Activities continue until 11:30 tonight and resume at 7:30 a.m. Saturday.
Brenda Clark, coordinator for this year's Pow Wow, says she expects more than 2,000 people will visit throughout the weekend.
"We also have 24 traders participating," she noted. "They will be showing and selling handcrafted Native American items."
Events Saturday include a craft contest at 11 a.m., the Gourd Dance at 1:30 p.m. and Intertribal Dances at 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. A pizza feast starts at 5:30 p.m. Meal tickets will be sold for $2.
Head singers are Billy Gene Williams of Anadarko, Okla., and Billy Evans Horse of Carnegie, Okla. Anthony Fortune of St. Stephan's Church, Va., is the head male dancer, and Nakomis Lemmons of Bruington, Va., is the head female dancer.
This year's princess is Becky Morgan of Radford. Barry Rogers of Perry, Ga., will serve as master of ceremonies.
Admission to the Pow Wow is free.
\ MEANWHILE, IN FLOYD . . . you'll find unbeatable double dance bands Saturday at a square dance to benefit Floyd's Old Church Gallery.
Danville's Shootin' Creek String Band will team up with The Unique Sounds of the Mountains, a duo featuring Barbara Poole on bass and Larry Sigmon on banjo.
Sigmon and Poole have six recordings under their belt and are favorites at bluegrass festivals all over. Their most recent performance was at the Jim & Jessie Bluegrass Festival at Slagles Pasture in Tennessee. They are staples at the Old Time Fiddlers Convention in Galax, as well.
The Shootin' Creek String Band features singer and banjo picker Kenny Rorrer. Rorrer's old-time style resembles that of Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers, a band that played at the Old Brame Hotel in Floyd in the '20s.
Rorrer even wrote a book, "Ramblin' Blues: The Life and Songs of Charlie Poole," detailing some of Floyd's musical history.
Other members of the band are Kirk Sutphin, fiddle and banjo; Ev Harris, bass; Keith Hiatt, fiddle and vocals; and Doug Rorrer, guitar.
The Kick Back Cloggers, a 15-member dance troupe from Galax, will put in an appearance, too.
Saturday's dance starts at 7 p.m. at Floyd County High School. Admission is $4.
\ HIGH BROW: Virginia Tech's Audubon Quartet will perform with guest artists Rami Solomonow and Norman Fischer in two concerts Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. They will play in the best acoustical facility around, Squires Recital Salon.
Solomonow, principal violinist of the Chicago Lyric Opera, was born in Tel Aviv, Israel, and has a degree from the Rubin Academy of Music. He also was a member of the Israel Chamber Orchestra for four seasons.
Fischer, a cellist and professor at Rice University in Houston, has been playing recitals with pianist Jeanne Kierman as the Fischer Duo since 1972. He also has taught at Dartmouth College and the Oberlin Conservatory.
Solomonow and Fischer will join the Audubon Quartet in a performance of Brahms' Sextet in G Major, Op. 36. The composer wrote the sextet for a woman he loved who broke off their engagement when Brahms wouldn't commit to the marriage. In 1864, still not over the affair, he wrote the sextet in which he calls her name repeatedly through the first movement by tracing her name in the notes of a theme. After the work was published, Brahms was quoted as saying, "Here I've freed myself from my last love."
The program also features Brahms' Quartet in C Minor, Op. 51, No. 1 performed by violinists David Ehrlich and David Salness, violist Doris Lederer and cellist Clyde Shaw of the Audubon Quartet. It was the composer's first published quartet.
Admission to either concert is $5 for adults or $3 for students and senior citizens. For ticket information, call the box office at Squires Student Center, 231-5615.
\ THE LONG AND THE SHORT OF IT: Musikgesellschaft Neukirch-Egnach. That's the long of it.
Good music. That's the short of it.
The Swiss band, composed of musicians from 14 to 75, will appear in concert with the Virginia Tech Wind Ensemble and the Blacksburg Community Band Monday at 8 p.m. The site is Virginia Tech's Commonwealth Ballroom in Squires Student Center.
Tech's David Widder is responsible for this treat. In the winter of 1990, Widder and his family lived in the village of Egnach, Switzerland, while he was studying historical clarinets there. During their stay, the Widders became friends with members of the Musikgesellschaft Neukirch-Egnach.
This is the first trip to America for many of the Swiss players. They are on a tour that includes stops in Washington, Blacksburg, Nashville and New Orleans.
One ensemble, the alphorn trio, is particularly interesting. The musicians play (what else?) the powerful sounding alphorns, those wooden horns ranging from 5 to 12 feet long used by Alpine herdsmen for signaling.
In addition to the Swiss band music, Monday's concert will feature a mix of works, including a Gilbert and Sullivan suite for winds, "Pineapple Poll," and several numbers by Hoagy Carmichael.
Best of all, this is a freebie.
Keywords:
POWWOW